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What becomes a sign depends on the level of our sensitivity. Lajos Szabó ''Inter Media''since I began lecturing at the Intermedia Department: firstly the connection of the term with other concepts, and secondly the questions that derive directly from the original meaning. What exactly does it mean to be in-between media? Where is precisely that virtual or real space the word refers to? What are the consequences of moving among the media and of the virtual movement resulting from their usage? What are the approaches yielded by the intermedia position? What is the desirable distance to keep from them? Is it possible to demarcate a territory in the universe of technical media that lies in-between them? In our contemporary mediated environment these questions affect everything and everyone, since the ever expanding network of technical media influences not only its operators and those working in this environment but all of us. (Even if this contact is not skin-tight yet - though it is only a matter of time with the rapid developments in microtechnology - it already has a significant influence on the processes going on in our minds.) In this respect, the example of art is illuminating and the conclusions go beyond its strict boundaries. According to Hannes Böhringer, new technologies do not existentially threaten visual art, but they represent a challenge that is only to its benefit. There is no adversary left for art. New technologies force art towards self-reflection, to be aware of its strength, of what it is and is not capable of. We could say, therefore, that art is the philosophical stage of technology - technology that has reached and recognized its limits. Art is a Trojan horse in the sense that it lies concealed in every new technology. Facing new technologies, the challenge of intermediality is an unavoidable puzzle. Inter media, in an abstract sense, designates the locus from where the reflective and creative mind starts off on its quest and where it returns again and again. Its problems therefore involve the place and essence of art, as well as every other intellectual field. Thus intermediality can be considered the paradigm for intellectual pursuits at higher levels of complexity. It equally raises the issues of encountering media, moving within them and keeping a distance. Encountering Technologies Encountering new technologies becomes unavoidable sooner or later, even if we would like to ignore them. This is exactly why we should embrace them. Besides being able to prevent undesirable surprises, familiarity with new technologies involves awareness of the technicalities of image production and its aesthetics, and it also involves transferable skills and motives. Due to their prevalence, imagery has started to change, followed by a shift in the field of perception, language, metaphors, probabilities and forms of movement. And this, in return, influences "traditional technologies" and media too. (The description and conceptualization of the transformation calls for a new vocabulary that is already emerging, with the key words lining up along the concepts referring to forms of movement and processes.) The form of movement to be found at the core of new technologies is the flow - not only the flow of electrons that operates the equipment, but that of the abundant signs and images. This image of flow is familiar from two domains: our eyes are used to the flow of air and that of water. This might explain why these images dominate the universe of new technologies, where a play of seemingly incessant artificial winds and liquidity give birth to morphologies. Instead of the solid, defined, heavy and bordered forms dominating the world above the surface, the amorphous forms of soft, light and ever changing liquidity are characteristic here. In this universe that seems to be unconfined compared to the others (and only restricted by memory, speed and programming), there are no borders between domains and materials; thus the changes occurring within are also arbitrary. Transformation can happen at any point, and the structure and process of change can be influenced at will. Forms and shapes flow into each other seamlessly, and apparently they merge into each other entirely. The patterns of cell biology and turbulence are at work in these metamorphoses: amoebic shapes, rivers of forms, vortex vacuums. Keeping the Distance A certain degree of familiarity with new technologies and media is necessary in order to learn to keep a distance from them and to be able to react effectively to their challenges. The multimedia artist, Laurie Anderson, always counterpoints her use of hi-tech equipment in sound and image production with her vivid and humble personal participation, with gestures that escape mediatization and with bridges spanning from soul to soul. "I am a technology fan" - she says. "I can fall in love with computers and machines when experimenting with sound. And I can go on and on about this for hours. But this is a kind of love and hate relationship. I also find these machines, with their numerous buttons and control switches repulsive. Of course it is important to be at ease with one's tools. While I was dealing with the material called technology several spontaneous ideas occurred to me that were the result of my childish play with the equipment. I am genuinely interested in the potential lying in these machines, and I've used them a lot in the past because I wanted to know everything about them. Now I know much more. I also came to realize that they should be used less." Distance can be kept as Vilém Flusser, the theoretician of the universe of technical images, did, by never really using ''new technologies''. William Gibson, the sci-fi writer who created the cyberpunk myth, has also stayed outside the computer world he depicted, even if his novels take place in future virtual worlds. Hierarchies have shifted into the domain of time. One feels the need for distance after looking at earlier manifestations of ''new technologies". This is when it becomes obvious how incredibly quickly these media become obsolete. It is worth considering how color (art) films or films with sound age - not so much due to their material carriers, but due to the ideas and intentions moving - or rather floating - in the possibilities allowed by the technology of the particular age. There are endless number of examples if we look at the highlights of the long - and by far not concluded - history of film without the cloud of nostalgia. The same symptoms are characteristic of the past of electronic music and computer images. The exceptions are extremely rare. Their common feature is exactly the distance they keep from current hi-tech trends due to several reasons - be it theoretical or ascetic or simply following the aesthetic principle of necessity that becomes virtue. Moreover, they employ earlier, obsolete (for instance, hand-crafted) techniques. Art based on "new technologies" cannot ignore the consequences of this phenomenon. The artist becomes subordinated to the commercial and power logic of technological developments, both in the intellectual and existential sense. In other words, he/she is subjugated to the development engineers of the military-industrial complex and the managers of transnational corporations on top of the usual dependence on art sponsors, gallery owners, bureaucrats and the whole apparatus of the art industry. Self-governing and autonomous technical systems also dictate a compulsory and ever growing speed in all aspects of life. Due to their autonomy and automatism, they determine the speed of developments and, consequently, the hierarchy of values: it will be more beautiful and better that which is produced with the more perfect technology of tomorrow. This is the name of the game, at least according to its theoreticians. The main function of art - Derrick De Kerckhove says - is to adjust the standard psychological interpretations of reality to the actual technical innovations. Which means that the hierarchy of values in art is shifted into time, into a temporality redefined by technology. Such art terminates its original and inspirational relationship with the other forms of time: with the ruptures of time and timelessness. On the User Interface With the artistic use of ''new technologies'' issues that were not questioned before arise. New and seemingly endless possibilities are opened in the computer's medium. At the same time ''old technologies'' inherently allow a type of interactivity between the artist and the material used that even the most interactive new media lacks. The traditional craftsperson-artist ''calls'' the material with his/her gestures and is in constant dialogue with the medium throughout the creative process. The medium replies; it even ''talks back''. This latter element of the dialogue is indispensable for all artistic creation. The dialogue between the artist and nature is always a sine qua non - as Paul Klee wrote in The Ways of Studying Nature. This is one of the reasons why a work of art is always more than the implementation of a concept, and this is why it is always interesting for the artist how to actually execute it because of the encounter with the resistance of the material, the hidden and incidental impulses, the upcoming bifurcation of paths and the interaction with the original idea. The user of ''new technologies'' is deprived of both this immediate relationship and the force derived from the interplay of the inherent (re)actions and randomness. However, the history of computer simulation - according to Derrick De Kerckhove - is indeed the history of gradual penetration into the tactile domain: starting with the two-dimensional, then three-dimensional, through the rapid development of tactile and force feedback simulation, like an electronic vortex that - as a richly structured matrix - absorbs you. The challenge of tactile technologies is reminiscent of Odysseus' sirens, along with all the erotic connotations. In spite of this, neither the so perfect (virtual) datagloves, goggles and the movements made in the space matrix, nor the umpteenth generation of random generators introduced in order to ensure the personality of computer creatures, will ever be able to render the intimacy of touching. At the moment development research is concentrated on full-body force-feedback - says Scott Fischer, a development engineer at NASA - but supposedly this is a problem with no solution. Therefore the user will perhaps still move on the surface. In other words, he/she will be like an astronaut rather than an argonaut: the contact with the environment will have to be mediated through the surface of a space suit. All Is Media Media are ubiquitous: they are present in all the fields of ideas, patterns, relations, hierarchies, desires, dreams and everyday life. The metaphor of the medium became omnipotent, therefore it permeates and penetrates everything. Consequently, everything can be identified as a medium. And this idea - no matter how modern it is - leads us back to an old truth: the endless richness and complexity of the world. Of course, new technologies provide novel perspectives, different lines of intersection and new criteria to contemplate what surrounds us. Paradoxically, this is where the absolute uniqueness of new media lie. This is the point of observation from where everything is medium, including our private universe - our body. And this is where the most intricate philosophical, theological and cosmological questions arise about the nature of the universe. The question will not only be what is the message of the phenomenon called nature and how could it be understood but also what or whose medium are we ourselves? And who is sending us messages through the veins of the marble or constellations ? What are the trees and how should we understand the floss of clouds above us...? Endless similar questions can be posed, some of which are paradoxical. I would only dwell on one of them: the impossibility to mediatize the whole universe. When pondering this it is worth taking into consideration the advice of Antoni Tapiés, the Catalonian artist: I wish we lost our faith in what we would like to believe in and what we consider stable in order to be forced to constantly remind ourselves that the discovery of another infinity is ahead of us. Distant Gardens - Beyond the Sea of Tranquillity |